Suzy Loftus, COO of the Center for Youth Wellness, hugs G.L. Hodge after a tour of the Bayview Child Health Center in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014. The facility combines the services of a health clinic, wellness center and child abuse prevention center under one roof.

Attorney General Kamala Harris is ecstatic after the opening of the Bayview Child Health Center in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014. The facility combines the services of a health clinic, wellness center and child abuse prevention center under one roof.

Gunshots and murders just outside the door. Parents and children being beaten in the home. Poverty.

These things do more than just rattle a child - they carve trauma so deep that a young person's life can pitch off the rails, physically and mentally.

So on Wednesday, San Francisco opened what is believed to be the nation's most comprehensive center of services aimed at keeping traumatized children on those rails and healthy.

The center, in the Bayview neighborhood, houses three organizations that individually were already providing counseling, medical treatment and law enforcement assistance to traumatized children. But now they are combining their efforts in one building for the first time, and the mayor, police chief, state attorney general and others say that collaboration will be a role model for the rest of the country.

Friendlier setting

Before the three set up shop under one roof, many children who had been raped or beaten had to be interviewed by police, child-welfare agents and other investigators in the basement of San Francisco General Hospital, then travel across town to various clinics for follow-up treatment.

The new building on Third Street near Cargo Way is light-filled and airy, is painted in soft blues and greens, and sports comfy furniture and toys to put the children at ease. It's a particular boon for the Child Advocacy Center.

Before, young crime victims had to be interviewed over and over by police, lawyers and others. Now, just one official can ask the questions in a setting that is less stressful for the children, while the others watch behind one-way glass.

Catching up

"Every major city in the country except San Francisco already had a children's advocacy center like this before now," said Katie Albright, executive director of the nonprofit that is running the advocacy facility, the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center. "Being able to open this up, and to be in the same building as the other organizations, is exciting and important."

The idea of housing all three types of services next to each other grew over the past five years out of research done by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who helps run the health center, and the city's Human Services Agency, among others.

Studies over the past decade have shown that trauma in the neighborhood and home creates what doctors have dubbed "adverse childhood experiences" that elevate the chances a youngster will drop out of school, become chronically depressed or abuse drugs.

Clipping that cycle short can be as easy as a doctor recognizing psychological trauma when it shows up in the form of persistent stomachaches.

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Telltale rash

Burke Harris, for example, recently saw a 6-year-old patient with a rash who showed up with his mother. Interviewing revealed that the boy's father drank and hit the mother, and was now gone from the home - all of which upset the boy so much that he not only had the rash, but was frequently disrupting his classroom.

Burke Harris linked up the child with biofeedback and other treatments that helped him learn how to keep his emotions in check through breathing and other relaxation techniques.

"Our focus right now, with this new cooperative effort, is showing that we are effective," Burke Harris said. "Our first step is really about serving families, listening to their feedback and making sure we are doing a phenomenal job."

$8 million project

The building and the effort to house the three organizations together required about $8 million in donations and grant funding by the Tipping Point Community and others.

"The Bayview is not as bad as some people say, but we do have our problems," said Gary Lynn Hodge, an administrator at the neighborhood's Providence Baptist Church who has brought his grandchildren to the health clinic. "We've got unemployed people, poverty, violence - not so long ago, I had to rush children inside my church when a man ran by with a machine gun.

"This center is a huge improvement," he said. "It's part of our jigsaw puzzle to address those problems. You just wait - you'll really see the effect in four, five years. It's creating a new culture here and saving lives in the process."